


The Care and Keeping

by sincereously



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, accidental kitten acquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 20:50:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20014606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sincereously/pseuds/sincereously
Summary: For the asoiafrarepairs promptfill weekend, "Arthur x Elia-First date ended up just being us taking care of a box of kittens I found on the way to your place."





	The Care and Keeping

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt found [here](https://asoiafrarepairs.tumblr.com/post/173486717562/arthur-x-elia-first-date-ended-up-just-being-us)

“So we might need to make a detour before we go to the movie,” was the first thing Arthur Dayne said when he showed up to Elia’s new house.

It certainly wasn’t the opening line that Elia had expected, and she’d run through a lot of possibilities since she agreed to go on a date with Arthur.

“What’s up?” Elia asked, brushing her hair out of her eyes. Rhaenys had insisted on helping Mom get ready for her date, but the hairstyle Rhaenys had picked – loosely curled and flowing – was not one that Elia would have chosen on her own.

Arthur nudged the door open with a huge box in his hands, and _whoa._ It had been a long time since she’d seen Arthur in anything but the dark suit that he’d worn as her bodyguard, and it was amazing what a bit of color could do for his already-handsome features. He’d chosen to wear a pair of tight white pants and a violet shirt that brought out his eyes, and as he passed by her and stepped over the baby gate to settle the box down in her kitchen, she sneaked a look at the rear view.

Those pleasant thoughts evaporated as she thought she heard a pitiful noise coming from the kitchen. Arthur had opened the box and was huddled protectively over it, and for a second she thought it _moved_. Cautiously, she made her way into the kitchen and peered inside.

“Well. You’re lucky Rhaenys is already asleep,” she said dryly. “Who knows what would happen if she saw this.”

_This_ was three kittens, probably no more than a couple of months old. The black one was trying to claw its way up the walls of the box, while the orange one attempted to catch its own tail and the calico one seemed content to curl up and sleep in a corner. They all had short fur and clear gold eyes and a surprising amount of vocal strength as they greeted her presence with a chorus of meows.

Rhaenys (and Aegon too, if she were being honest with herself) would probably have already named the kittens by now and started building a nest for them in one of their rooms. She was glad that she’d already put them to bed. She was also glad that Balerion was in Rhaenys’ room, zealously guarding his sleeping young mistress from the babysitter. He wasn’t the kind of cat who took well to interlopers in his domain.

“I saw them in this box about a mile down the road from your house,” Arthur said softly, stroking the top of the black kitten’s tiny head. “I couldn’t just leave them there.” His eyes widened, and he hastily stood up and rubbed the back of his neck. “You don’t mind my bringing them into the house? I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

She put a hand on his shoulder and rubbed it gently. “It’s all right. You did the right thing. You think they’re old enough to eat real cat food?”

“Sure,” he said, and his smile was enough to make Elia’s heart stutter.

The kittens seemed a little thin and small and could probably use a bath, but they easily settled into her and Arthur’s touch as they slowly lifted the kittens out of the box and onto the linoleum. But then again, maybe that was just Arthur. When they were teenagers together, Arthur had once spent a whole summer winning the trust of a stray dog and eventually teaching it to run at his heels. Maybe it was the same quality that had made her recommend him when her in-laws had demanded that she get a bodyguard, that had led Rhaenys and Aegon to run to him first when they wanted to play with someone and Rhaegar was too busy to oblige.

Freed from their cardboard prison, the kittens quickly tucked into small handfuls of Balerion’s favorite cat chow. As she watched them eat, Arthur slowly made his way just beside her, close enough that she could touch him if only she leaned a little to the left. He was waiting to let her close the gap, she realized. So much had changed so quickly, from her marriage to her home to her hair, and maybe he was afraid of being one more overwhelming difference in the whirlwind of her life. Maybe.

_No way to know unless I try,_ she thought.

As the orange kitten finished its meal and began to pounce on Arthur’s shoelaces, she giggled at the goofy grin on his face.

“They like you.”

“They like you, too,” Arthur pointed out, as the calico kitten tentatively began to lick one of Elia’s toes with its scratchy little tongue.

Elia tried very hard to look sternly at the kitten, but she could feel the corners of her mouth keep turning up. Arthur sat down and removed the kitten from Elia’s foot, holding it in his lap as the other kittens ran forward to meet them. After a moment, Elia joined them too, and hesitantly laid her head on Arthur’s shoulder. 

“I had thought we could bring them to an animal shelter,” he said, with reluctant longing in his voice. “Though now that I think about it, I’m not sure if a shelter would still be open this late.”

Turns out there _was_ an animal shelter open this late, but it was a couple of hours away by car. And, well, the movie had been a good idea and all, a very respectable first date, but Arthur was already _here,_ with his warm shoulder and warmer smile, looking so comfortable sitting on her kitchen floor with kittens crawling over him that the thought of making him move suddenly seemed unbearable.

“You know what? I can cancel the sitter. We can catch the movie another day.” She smiled. “I think I’m happy right where I am.”

He let go of a kitten long enough to squeeze her hand. “Me too.”


End file.
